D&D (2024) New One D&D Playtest Shows Us The New Druid & Paladin

WotC has released the fourth One D&D playtest document. This 29-page PDF includes the druid and the paladin with Circle of the Moon and Oath of Devotion subclasses.

Druid. The Druid class and Circle of the Moon subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Paladin. The Paladin class and Oath of Devotion subclass are ready for playtesting here.

Feats. Several revised feats appear here for your feedback, with more revised feats coming in future articles.

Spells. More spells are ready for playtesting, with a focus on smite spells, Find Familiar, and Find Steed.

Rules Glossary. The rules glossary has been updated again and supersedes the glossary in previous Unearthed Arcana articles. In this document, any underlined term in the body text appears in that glossary, which defines game terms that have been clarified or redefined for this playtest or that don’t appear in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

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[Frozen_Heart]

My thoughts:

• Happy metal armour restriction has gone.
• Not a fan of the new wildshape. Especially combined with the fact that they're doubling down on wildshape being the main core feature of druid. What if I want to play a nature themed caster not based on turning into animals?
• New divine smite and smite spells are awesome. Really happy with those.
• I'm making jealous swordmage noises towards paladin getting all this spellstrike type stuff.
• I understand why the paladin subclass capstone has gone, but it's sad to see it go.

 

[bedir than]

I LOVE the flavor of Healing Blossoms

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't get why someone thinks that druids get all the paladin spells. They don't.
Cleric and paladins use the divine list. Druids and rangers the primal list.
Smites are divine only...

Overall, I like it.

I just have 2 things to remark:

1. When the familar gets spell level calculated in their hp. Which level does the druid cast it when channeling nature? Same for the paladin find steed.
To make the paladin steed as good as a cleric steed, I think we need casted at half paladin level rounded up.

2. Why does the combat wildshape not improve the AC of the beast.
Low AC use to balance extra hp, now the moon druid will just lose hp...

 

[Loren the GM]

I'd recommend watching the videos as well as reading the content. They go into a lot of the "why" behind the changes to the classes. For instance, druid is the least played class in 5e, largely because it is so complicated. As a general design goal, they want to move players away from needing access to DM facing material (such as monster stat blocks).

Druid Video

Paladin Video

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Interesting that they picked moon as the base subclass, rather than land.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Sure, why not continue to let Paladins destroy bounded accuracy with Cha to Saves for all AND allowing Charisma to stack with Str/Dex for attack rolls.

 

[bedir than]

Interesting that they picked moon as the base subclass, rather than land.

I'm hoping that means the Land Druid goes away. Currently it's rather boring

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Kinda lame that Druids now have to wait until 11th level to turn into a mouse.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm hoping that means the Land Druid goes away. Currently it's rather boring

It really felt like grid filling. "Well, I guess we should have a more caster-y caster option..."

 

[bedir than]

I still dislike the idea that you can only have Heroic Advantage/Inspiration one at a time. An extremely limited resource is typically saved rather than used.